


Table For Two

by FlirtyFroggy



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU, Drunken Shenanigans, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fernando's friends have no boundaries, M/M, answers on a postcard, the nantoine fake dating fic no-one asked for, why do I keep writing diego simeone as an interfering matchmaker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 04:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15356103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: “I’ve just had a really bad idea.”“Another one?”“Your friends want you to be in a relationship, right? And my parents want the same for me. So why don’t we be in one?”“What?”“Not a real one, obviously. We’ll just tell them we’re a couple. They won’t know any different. And then they can stop nagging us and there’ll be no more risk of Diego or anyone else pulling a stunt like last night.”“You’re right, that’s a really bad idea.”Fernando and Antoine are both happy as they are. Their friends disagree.





	Table For Two

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my hard drive for two years. I like what's here and was just going to post it as abandoned/unfinished but reading through it has made me want to finish it. Whether I will or not I don't know.
> 
> I don't remember which haircuts they had at the time I wrote this, so just pick a dodgy haircut for each of them and apply accordingly.

The place was a lot nicer than the places he and Diego usually went for dinner. A _lot_ nicer. There were real flowers in the vases, a pianist tinkling away like he thought he was in _Casablanca_ , and alarm bells ringing in Fernando’s head. Each table was a shining sea of cutlery, more cutlery than Fernando had ever owned let alone would use for a single meal. The maitre d’ didn’t look askance at his lack of tie or anything like that, so perhaps the place wasn’t as fancy as it looked. But still. Diego was up to something.

He was led over to a table for two in the corner and he sat down gingerly, as though his perfectly adequate black trousers might somehow sully the furnishings. “Can I get you anything to drink while you wait for your companion, sir?” the waiter asked as Fernando flipped open the menu. 

“Just some water, please,” he choked, his gaze falling on the right-hand column. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford to eat here, exactly, it was just that he wouldn’t be eating anything else for the rest of the week.

“How would you like that, sir?”

“Just… in a glass.”

“Still or sparkling, sir?” He asked it as though it was an entirely new question and not a correction of Fernando’s misunderstanding, but Fernando was certain the man was laughing internally.

“Still, thank you.”

“Very good.” The waiter hoovered away. Fernando thought he might have actually bowed slightly, but he wasn’t sure because he couldn’t stop staring at the menu. 

He was still staring at it when the waiter returned with his drink. He glanced up, only to find that it wasn’t his waiter after all. This was a new one. He pulled out the chair opposite Fernando and turned to the person behind him. The person behind him definitely wasn’t Diego — too short, too young, too… rodenty. One of the cuter rodents, sure. A hamster or a meerkat or something. The newcomer hesitated, glancing at Fernando. “Um, I think there’s been a mistake,” he said to the waiter. The waiter frowned, as though the concept of ‘a mistake’ wasn’t one he was familiar with.

“Table for Simeone, yes?” the waiter said.

“Yes,” Fernando and the stranger said in unison. Fernando’s alarm bells clanged ever louder.

“Then this is your table, sir.”

The stranger sat down as though he didn’t know quite what else to do. Fernando knew the feeling. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Diego didn’t tell me someone else would be joining us.”

“This is a table for two,” Fernando pointed out. He was going to kill Diego.

“Right, yeah.” He bit his lip. “Yeah, I see that.”

The maitre d’ was making his way over to their table, Fernando’s waiter on his heels. At this rate they were going to have every member of staff in the place surrounding them. They were already drawing glances from nearby tables. Fernando ducked his head and slid down in his chair a little.

“Mr Simeone sends his apologies, sirs. He couldn’t make it. He hopes you enjoy dinner regardless.” If he thought it at all strange that a third person was begging off from a booking for two, he didn’t show it. Perhaps they had interfering bastards setting up their friends all the time. The first waiter set down Fernando’s drink and Fernando heard the stranger order a beer from the second waiter. He winced internally. The kid hadn’t looked at the menu yet. Then again, perhaps he was loaded. He didn’t look loaded but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. Perhaps he was paying.

The flock of waiters vanished and Fernando was relieved for about half a second before awkward silence descended.

“So,” the stranger said after a pause. “We’ve been set up.”

“It would appear so.”

“I don’t know why Diego didn’t just text us to say he couldn’t make it instead phoning the restaurant like it’s the 80’s or something.” Fernando looked at him. No way did this kid know the first thing about the 80’s. Fernando wasn’t convinced he even knew about the 90’s. 

“Yeah, well. Diego’s—” a dick. Diego’s a dick, he was going to say. But he didn’t know what relationship his date — his fucking date, Christ — had with him. “He does his own thing.”

“You mean he’s a dick,” the kid said. Fernando bit back a smile. The kid opened his menu and his eyes widened. He closed the menu then opened it again, as though it might say something different. He glanced up at Fernando and leaned towards him. “I, uh, I can’t afford any of this,” he whispered, his cheeks tinged with pink. Fernando shook his head.

“I can’t either.”

“Shit. What the hell is Diego playing at?” Fernando shrugged. “What do we do?”

“Make our excuses and leave, I suppose. Well, after we’ve paid for our drinks.” The second waiter was returning with the beer the kid now clearly regretted ordering. The kid let out a quiet groan.

“The maitre d’ asked me to let you know, gentlemen, that Mr Simeone has already paid for the meal and requests that you order whatever you like,” the waiter said. Fernando let out a breath. The kid sagged back in his chair.

“Thank you,” Fernando said a little belatedly to the waiter’s back. The kid was grinning at him from across the table. 

“Well, I don’t know why Diego decided to set us up in a place like this instead of, you know, somewhere normal. But if he’s paying I’m not going to complain.” The kid picked up his menu again and perused it with considerably more excitement than previously. “Is it too cheeky to order the most expensive thing on here?”

Diego would deserve it. But he also probably wouldn’t care, so as vengeance went it was rather hollow. “How about we just order what we like and if it happens to be the most expensive thing then so be it.” The kid grinned at him over the top of his menu. For a rodent, he had really pretty eyes.

“I’m Antoine, by the way.”

“Fernando. Pleased to meet you.”

~~

“Can you tell the difference between this wine and the cheaper wine?” Antoine said. He was squinting at his glass and listing slightly to the side.

“Which cheaper wine?” Fernando said, trying to keep his words from running into each other. “The slightly cheaper wine or the much cheaper wine?” Cheaper was a relative term; even the cheapest bottle on the wine list was more than double the most expensive Fernando had ever bought.

“Both.”

“Nope. It’s all just squashed grapes to me.”

Antoine giggled. “Squashed grapes.” He finished off the wine in his glass and went to pour more, only to find the bottle empty. He frowned. Then he brightened. “We should order champagne,” he said, drawing out the final syllable until he ran out of breath. He giggled again.

“I don’t really like champagne.” Fernando looked down at the remains of his desert. It seemed to move on its own, just a little. He decided against finishing it. He didn’t want to eat things that moved on their own. “I don’t really like champagne.” Had he already said that? He said it again for good measure.

“I don’t either.” Antoine let out the gasp of someone in the throes of a brilliant idea. “Let’s order champagne and then not drink it.”

“Antoine, no,” Fernando said, with a vague feeling that this was something they shouldn’t do, though he wasn’t sure why. Just didn’t seem right. But Antoine was already waving over a waiter.

“Monsieur!”

“Antoine, no.”

“S’okay, I’m French. Monsieur!”

“Yes, sir?”

“A bottle of, um,” he fumbled with the wine list, “this one.” He stabbed near the bottom of the page with his finger. “I want this one.”

“Thank you, sir.” The waiter plucked the wine list from Antoine’s hands. “If I could advise you gentlemen, the restaurant will be closing in twenty minutes.”

“Don’t worry, we can get through a bottle in twenty minutes.”

“I’m sure you can, sir.” The waiters moved away. Fernando blinked. Where had the second one come from? He blinked again and there was just one.

“If you’re French,” he said, turning back to Antoine, “how come you can’t read the names of the champagnes?”

“It’s not ‘cause I’m too drunk to read if that’s what you’re implying.”

Fernando shook his head. “Course not.”

“So,” Antoine said, intent and serious. “You never said. How do you know Diego and why is he setting you up on blind dates you don’t know anything about?”

“Because he’s a dick.” It felt good to say it out loud, so he did it again. “He’s a dick.” Antoine giggled. It was cute.

“I know that. But why? I mean, why?” he asked as though he was questioning the meaning of existence. Perhaps he was.

“We work together. And he’s my boss now, or my superior anyway. Thinks that gives him the right to interfere in every bit of my life. But it doesn’t. But he does it anyway.”

“But why?”

Fernando felt weirdly sober all of a sudden, even though he was staring at a full champagne glass in his hand with no idea how it had got there. “He thinks because I don’t have a boyfriend then I’m not getting sex and he thinks I should get some. And I don’t really do relationships. I don’t object to them in principle, it’s just— I like my life, and I like having my life to myself. I don’t want to share it with anyone. I’m not saying I never will, it’s just I’ve never met anyone who made me want to and I’m not going to look for something or start something just for the sake of it when I’m happy as I am. My friends don’t get it. They see me alone and think I must be lonely. But I’m not. I like my own company.”

Antoine nodded seriously. “Your company is good. I see why you would like it.” He topped up his champagne glass, which was already mostly full. Champagne bubbled up and over the side. Antoine swore and tried to mop it up, but mostly just made more mess as he caught his napkin against his plate and trailed crushed raspberry all over the tablecloth. Fernando’s sobriety vanished as quickly as it arrived and he laughed as Antoine sucked champagne and juice from his fingers.

“We are never going to be allowed in here ever again.”

“I was surprised they let us in here in the first place. I mean, look at this.” Antoine pointed to his own head. “And this.” He pointed to Fernando’s head. “This is not hair that should ever be allowed in a nice restaurant.”

“Fuck off, leave my hair alone,” Fernando said through helpless laughter.

“Diego’s name got us in here, I’m pretty sure. I think he’s a regular. No way we’re getting through the door otherwise.”

“I wonder if they’ll let him back in here after this?”

“Serve him right if they don’t. I don’t do relationships either.” Fernando was puzzled at the non-sequiter except, no, they had been talking about this. About Diego and how they knew him and why he was setting them up. “Not because of the wanting to be on my own thing, it’s just I’m young, you know? I don’t want to settle down yet. I want to have fun. But my parents think I should find something serious. They don’t think I should be, what was it, ‘taking home a different guy every other night like I’m trying win some sort of prize’. But why shouldn’t I? I work hard, I pay my bills, I pay my taxes. Why shouldn’t I blow off some steam at the weekend? I’m twenty five not forty five. And I’m not taking home a different guy every other night,” he added with a grumble. “It’s one or two a month, at most. Anyway, they’re friends with Diego, so I guess this is a favour to them. My parents are friends with Diego, not the guys I take home. Or go home with. I don’t usually sleep with friends of Diego. I’m rambling, I’ll stop talking now.”

Fernando reached for the champagne and topped up his own glass, then raised it to Antoine. “To being alone.”

Antoine clinked his glass against Fernando’s. Champagne slopped down the side again. “To being alone.”

They drained their glasses just as the maitre d’ appeared at their table. “Time to go, gentlemen.”

~~

Fernando hadn’t had a hangover so bad for a very long time. Not since he was a student taking advantage of ill-advised two-for-one shots nights. And those were usually chased off in a few hours with a couple of litres of Coke and his own weight in Pringles. This, he knew with a horrible certainty, was not going to be so easy. Champagne always did him in. Someone had once told him that good champagne didn’t have the same headache-inducing effects as cheap champagne, but that person had lied. It didn’t matter if it cost a month’s salary or an hour’s, apparently champagne would always make him feel like his own brain was trying to kill him. Or perhaps it was the red wine. Or being over thirty. Whatever it was, he needed to lie very, very still.

As he lay there trying to ignore the roiling of his stomach and the shaft of sunlight that tormented his eyes, he became aware of something making its way through the pain and nausea. A sound. A shower, he realised. A shower was running. His shower. Someone was in his shower. Who? Think, Fernando, think. Antoine. Antoine was in his shower. He thought back to the night before: a delicate face; pretty eyes and an infectious, ready smile; talkative when he opened up, with a mischievous streak. He’d certainly slept with worse. Shame he couldn’t remember the sex, it had probably been fun. Actually, why couldn’t he remember the sex? His body was a mess but his memories seemed pretty clear. 

It came back to him in a rush. They had been very politely kicked out of the restaurant and Fernando had invited Antoine to spend the night at his place as it was close by. He wasn’t sure why, it had just seemed like a good idea at the time. Like ordering five courses of food and three bottles of wine. And the cocktails they had before desert. And the blasted champagne. All good ideas at the time.

He had made coffee for them in a futile attempt to sober them up but didn’t remember drinking it. It was probably still in the kitchen. They had wrestled with the sofa-bed in Fernando’s living room for a while before giving up. It was supposed to be idiot-proof but apparently wasn’t drunken idiot-proof. Then they had collapsed, mostly clothed, into Fernando’s bed and gone to sleep. There had been no suggestion of them having sex, which was probably for the best. 

The shower stopped. Fernando’s phone buzzed on his bedside table like a pneumatic drill. He groaned and picked it up, intending to turn it off, then saw a text message from Diego.

 _hear u had fun at my expense. do u know if antoine is ok? txt him and havent heard back._ Fernando glared at the screen and began typing without thinking.

_how have you heard anything at this hour? what the hell time is it? why are you concerned about Antoine? what do you think Ive done with him? what do you take me for? hes at my place._

It took him several seconds after pressing send to work out why part of his brain was screaming at him. Before he had chance to do anything — not that there was a damn thing he could do — his phone buzzed again. The message, presumably a response to the last part of Fernando’s message, was just a long string of hand claps and smiling faces. Cursing the person who taught Diego about emojis, he typed out a reply.

 _fuck off. also, don’t ever speak to me again._ Then he turned his phone off and threw it on the floor.

“Um, everything okay?” a voice from the door said. Antoine stood there in his jeans, rubbing at his hair with a towel. Fernando closed his eyes.

“I let slip to Diego that you stayed here last night and now he’s making assumptions.”

“Oh. Well that’s not so bad.”

“He’s going to be smug forever.”

“Maybe. Or maybe this is good for you.”

“How?”

“As far as he’s concerned we had a one night stand. That's what he wanted, right? For you to hook up with someone? Maybe he’ll get off your back.”

“Maybe.” It didn’t seem likely. “ I think he's hoping we'll hook up more than just the once. And it doesn’t help you much. I’m just another one on your list, right? As far as Diego and your parents know.”

“I don’t have a list.” Antoine sounded genuinely affronted.

“I know you don’t. Sorry. I’m not good at mornings.” Or hangovers. Or new people.

There was a long silence. After a minute or so Fernando opened up one eye to find Antoine still rubbing absently at his hair in the doorway, lost in thought. He turned to look at Fernando with a gleam in his eye.

“I’ve just had a really bad idea.”

“Another one?”

“Your friends want you to be in a relationship, right? And my parents want the same for me. So why don’t we be in one?”

“What?”

“Not a real one, obviously. We’ll just tell them we’re a couple. They won’t know any different. And then they can stop nagging us and there’ll be no more risk of Diego or anyone else pulling a stunt like last night.”

“You’re right, that’s a really bad idea.”

“No it’s not.”

“You just said it was.”

“I changed my mind. It’s perfect.”

“If we pretend to be in a relationship then Diego will think his plan worked and he will definitely be smug forever. And—” There were definitely more objections to this plan, but right now Fernando couldn’t think what they were. His head hurt, his stomach felt terrible, and all he wanted to do was sleep. It was hard to think of much else.

“Diego being smug is a small price to pay for getting everyone off our backs, don’t you think? We can just get on with our lives in peace without having to justify everything we do to people who mean well but really need to mind their own business. Think about it.”

Fernando thought about it. Antoine stared at him beseechingly from the doorway. His hair was stuck up all over the place and he had a patch of stubble on one cheek he had apparently missed with what was presumably Fernando’s razor.

“Okay,” he found himself saying.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't ever behave like this in a restaurant. Please. Don't be those people.


End file.
